True, Jeff Wells is gifted with set-up acumen. This is reflected in his use of Shakti…
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Snatching my prize for best sound on the third floor, the world premiere of the new Wells Audio Innamorata Signature amplifier ($13,000), enhanced by the new crystal technology in Jack Bybee's A/V Signal Enhancers ($119.95) and Bybee Technologies power cables ($1500), blew me away. Whoever expected, on Reference Recordings' new Kansas City Symphony recording of the suite from Prokofiev's Love for Three Oranges, such impeccably detailed, superbly controlled full-range sound in such a small room?
Amy LaVere: Runaway's Diary
Archer ARR 319611/2 (LP/CD). 2014. Luther Dickinson, prod.; Kevin Houston, eng., Daniel Lyon, asst. eng. ADA/ADD. TT: 38:27.
Archer ARR 319611/2 (LP/CD). 2014. Luther Dickinson, prod.; Kevin Houston, eng., Daniel Lyon, asst. eng. ADA/ADD. TT: 38:27.
"It's not your average gal that drinks bourbon neat, walks around with a pocket atlas and drives a big white gear van. I thought she was charming and awfully funny."
Talent and humor has never been a problem for Amy LaVere. Not long after high school she led Last Minute, a Detroit punk band. When we next hear of her, she's in Nashville as part of a husband-and-wife folk/country duo, The Gabe and Amy Show, who released a single…
I've always considered the high end to be industrial art. People who favor a certain brand are saying, in a way, "I like that designer's interpretation. I like his or her art."—David Wilson
Last March, I had a rare experience akin to hearing the same recording through two different systems. I heard Andris Nelsons conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in the same program—Haydn's Symphony 90, and Brahms's Variations on a Theme by Haydn, followed by his Symphony 3—in two very different venues: UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall and, 50 miles north, Sonoma State University's Weill Hall.
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It's like hearing the name of an old friend and then seeing him, in your mind's eye, as he was when you were both much younger: Whenever talk turns to Boulder, Colorado–based PS Audio, I can't help picturing that company's Model IV preamplifier, of the early 1980s—most likely because that was the preamp I longed to own at the time. (Tragically, I couldn't afford to buy it, so I struggled on with my NAD 1020.)
An awful lot has changed since then, including, in recent years, a shift of PS Audio's emphasis from audio amplification to AC-power regeneration. Even more recently, under the…
As it turned out, the silence wasn't the result of a hardware or firmware flaw. Rather, it pointed to the need for greater care in optimizing my computer settings—greater, that is, than the level of care required by most PCM-only USB processors, the relative simplicity of which had lulled me into a false sense of expertise. During a conversation with Paul McGowan I learned that I needed to: open my iMac's AudioMIDI Setup window; highlight the left-column choice for the PS Audio DAC; change the source default sampling rate from 44.1 to 192kHz; and remove from the master-channel "Mute" box a…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Single-box digital-to-analog converter. Formats supported: all PCM and DSD codecs (AIFF, WAV, DSF, etc.). Sample rates accepted: TosLink, 16–24-bit/44.1–96kHz; all other inputs, 16–24-bit/44.1–358.2kHz, plus DSD 64 and 128. Digital inputs: 6 including AES/EBU, TosLink, USB. Analog outputs: 2. Frequency response: 20Hz–20kHz, ±0.25dB. Output levels: high range, 2.81V RMS; low range, 1.41V RMS. Output impedance: 100 ohms balanced, 200 ohms single-ended.
Dimensions: 17" (430mm) W by 4" (100mm) H by 14" (360mm) D. Weight: 29.7 lbs (13.5kg).
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Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Analog Sources: Garrard 301 turntable; EMT 997 tonearm; EMT OFD 25 & TSD 15 70th Anniversary pickup heads.
Digital Sources: Halide Designs DAC HD USB and Luxman DA-06 D/A converters; Apple iMac G5 computer running Decibel v.1.2.11, Audirvana Plus v.1.5.12 playback software; Sony SCD-777ES SACD/CD player.
Preamplification: Hommage T2 step-up transformer, Sutherland Engineering Insight phono preamplifier, Shindo Masseto preamplifier.
Power Amplifiers: Shindo Corton-Charlemagne & Cortese (both monoblocks), Fi 421a.
Loudspeakers: Altec…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
I examined the PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream's electrical performance with my Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see www.ap.com and the January 2008 "As We See It"). To test its USB input, I used my 2012 MacBook Pro running on battery power. Unless stated otherwise, all measurements were performed from the processor's balanced outputs. I don't yet have files of DSD-encoded test signals, so I assessed the DirectStream's measured performance with PCM-encoded files, with sample rates extending from 44.1 up to 352.8kHz. All testing was done with the DirectStream…
The French do things differently. I first heard Triangle loudspeakers at the 1981 Festival du Son, in Paris. That was, of course, after I had obtained admission to the show, in a nonintuitive process in which members of the press obtained their credentials at a booth inside the show. But my experience of the Triangle speaker, a small, three-way floorstander, was positive: It sounded clean and uncolored, and nothing like the BBC-inspired speakers I preferred at that time. The Triangle wasn't as neutral as the English norm, but there was something appealing about its sound—something that, I…
I have mentioned before how much I appreciate Bruce Hornsby's practice of making his live concerts available for download. As I write these words, I'm listening to Bruce Hornsby & the Noisemakers' live 2009 recording of "Road Not Taken," from Dagle's Choice Vol.4 (16/44.1 ALAC transcoded from FLAC download). The Noisemakers, a superbly tight band, feature Captain Beefheart alum J.T. Thomas on keyboards, as well as bassist J.V. Collier, whose phat lines on five-string bass guitar in this track sounded propulsive through the Triangles. But the weight of the lows didn't obscure or…